gardening, Clarabelle style
by cedricsowner
Summary: Another one-shot using weapon13WhiteFang's world and character. Clarabelle means well, but in the end Ash always has a lot of cleaning up to do...


**Disclaimer: I don't own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement. **

_**A/N: Again this is a response to weapon13WhiteFang's wonderful "magic" one-shots, this time directly to a line in "Chasing Carmine" . We're probably getting on everybody's nerves with this heavily AUish stuff, but this is just too much fun to resist... Clarabelle belongs to her, Ash to me.**_

"So you've discovered your green thumb" Connie stated, giving first the office, then her sister-in-law a long, thoughtful look that spoke volumes.

"Recent studies show that plants in the office significantly raise the working atmosphere. Very important in any line of business, in ours indispensable. A finely tuned team is the be-all and end-all here. Given the challenges my people have to face on a daily basis for the clients, disturbances in the office climate could have literally fatal results..."

"And you figured better safe than sorry, hm?", Connie interrupted her, recognizing Ilsa's lecture on human resources maintenance for what it was - complete codswallop.

Ilsa opened her mouth, apparently to make up more facts about the benefits of office plants, but Connie waved her off. "Look, dear, you want to keep plants in your office the size of baby elephants, I'm fine with that."

She gave the giant rubber fig towering high above her a skeptical once-over, then shrugged. "At least your people are not testing bullet-proof vests with live ammunition in the lobby, like last time when I came visiting you. Compared to that, what are a few strangely oversized plants?"

"Hey." As if on cue, Chance came down the stairs leading up to his living quarters. "You might not want to use the guest toilet. We've got a tiny little problem with a Venus flytrap there..." He flashed a machete.

Connie raised her eye-brows.

"The hand grenades are ready, dude!" Guerrero, yelling from the direction of the bathroom.

"Maybe we should sit down and _talk _a bit after all", Connie told Ilsa.

"Should you plan to use Ilsa's office, beware of the ivory... it's rather... active... We're going to tackle that, once we're done with the flytrap..."

The sound of a minor explosion coming from the direction of the guest toilet interrupted Chance. "Hey, don't start without me!", he yelled, dashing off. His eyes were gleaming.

Ilsa stifled a groan while Connie, in a tone that left not much room for interpretation, suggested they should use her lawyer's office in the FiDi instead.

As they headed to the elevator, the doors slid open and out stepped Winston, carrying a chainsaw.

"I want to see Ashley when I return. In my _plant-free_ office. No excuses", she hissed at him before following her sister-in-law into the car.

... ... ...

It was very late in the evening when Ash was finally allowed to go to bed. Although Guerrero owned a very effective chipper, chaffing all those plant parts had been damn hard work. Not to speak of sitting through the lecture Ilsa had given him on a certain bubbly, frizzy haired friend of his. Somehow "You wouldn't believe me if I could tell you." hadn't really cut it with her.

Speaking of...

His cell signaled. Text message from Clarabelle.

_How bad was it? _

Ash harrumphed. _Next science project will be my call _he typed.

_:-( I was thinking about doing sth w/ frogs_

Ash's answer was predictable and came in capitals:

_NO WAY_

When no reply came, Ash turned off his bedside lamp and decided to try and get some sleep. Ilsa had said something about waking him up at six so he could scrub the floor clean from plant sap first thing tomorrow and it was already one am.

The following morning saw Ash padding into the gym area where he had chaffed the plants yesterday, carrying a toothbrush, a bucket and a bar of curd soap. Ilsa sure did love the classics.

When he knelt down to tackle the first green spot, however, to his great surprise it came off without any need for water, soap or a brush - over night the sticky slime had turned into easy to remove, slightly glittery green dust.

Cleaning the floor was a piece of cake and was done in five minutes.

_Thnx_ he texted Clarabelle.

_Frogs?_ she texted back.

Shaking his head, he replied with another _NO WAY _in capitals.

Deep in his heart, however, he already knew that someday soon he'd better have a damn good explanation for a frog chorus interrupting one of Ilsa's office meetings...


End file.
